What’s most interesting about the Illinois-14 race is that hardcore immigration opponents lost again and with one of their standout candidates.

In 2002, Oberweis’ criticism of Bush’s immigration stance essentially made him persona non-grata to the national party and that relationship didn’t improve with the 2004 race. The difference this year was that Hastert shepherded him through the national party because of the bad blood between Hastert and Lauzen.

Oberweis staked out the hardcore send back 12 million people immediately and no exceptions kind of policy and not only embraced the position, but embraced fairly radical anti-immigrant activist organizations.

Most amazing is that John McCain, long a reasonable voice on the immigration debate embraced Oberweis as McCain’s flip flop to the dark side of several issues continues.

He’s spoken at Illinois Minutemen meetings such as this one on May 6, 2006 mntmn017.wav

And despite railing on the businesses using undocumented workers, Oberweis Dairy never wondered why the company cleaning for them could afford to do the work they were doing. Turns out the contractor were paying below minimum wage for undocumented workers.

In his hubris, he made one of the funniest political commercials ever, which was also filled with falsehoods:

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The DCCC filed a complaint today with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against Jim Oberweis, the Republican Congressional candidate in IL-14, and Oberweis Dairy. Jim Oberweis illegally benefited from Oberweis Dairy resources when the Dairy filed and promoted a frivolous lawsuit against the DCCC for its ads hitting Oberweis on his hypocrisy of using polarizing rhetoric on illegal immigration while benefiting from illegal immigrants’ labor.

“Jim Oberweis and Oberweis Dairy know that the ads about Oberweis’ hypocrisy of using polarizing rhetoric on illegal immigration while benefiting from illegal immigrants’ labor are completely true,” said Jennifer Crider, Communications Director at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “We are filing this complaint to hold Jim Oberweis accountable for illegally using Oberweis Dairy resources to mislead voters about the fact illegal immigrants were found working at Oberweis Dairy stores. The Chicago Tribune editorial board said it best, Oberweis’ ‘campaign style has consistently been nasty … and dishonest.'”

Jim Oberweis and Oberweis Dairy have a pattern of engaging in this illegal activity. The FEC had previously sanctioned Jim Oberweis and Oberweis Dairy and fined them $21,000 for illegally using corporate resources for campaign purposes.

[…] Perhaps he’ll even throw in a carton of milk for the bus ride back. According to the ArchPundit: Oberweis staked out the hardcore send back 12 million people immediately and no exceptions kind of […]